On 16 September, the Skolkovo Foundation and the National Agency for Low-Rise and Detached Residence Development (NAMIKS) signed a cooperation agreement. The signing ceremony took place at the Dvorkovich Chess Parlour (Riviera Pavilion 10) at the X International Investment Forum Sochi-2011.
The document was signed by Viktor Maslakov, Foundation vice-president and executive director in Territory Development of the Skolkovo Innovation Centre, and Elena Nikolaeva, NAMIKS president.
The agreement fixes the parties’ intentions to cooperate on low-rise building construction projects at the innovation complex. The parties are to develop innovative houses that will first appear in Skolkovo and, starting in 2014, this technology is to be applied on a huge scale throughout Russia. In cooperation with NAMIKS, the Skolkovo Foundation will also build a modern industrial and domestic waste-processing plant utilising high-temperature plasma technology, as well as a power plant to provide the Skolkovo centre with electricity and heat. The parties have agreed that NAMIKS will bring designers and developers, participate in selecting projects, suggest projects to the Skolkovo Foundation, provide expert and consulting services to developers and, upon prior agreement with the Foundation, arrange media publicity of these projects.
The Skolkovo Foundation, in its turn, will make suggestions regarding architectural design solutions and facility planning, assist in administrative and technical activities and engage with NAMIKS on employing modern technologies for building low-rise housing at the innovation centre.
Background information:
About NAMIKS
The National Agency for Low-Rise and Detached Residence Development (NAMIKS), founded in 2007, is a non-profit partnership uniting companies from the low-rise construction market and a partner in United Russia’s Svoi Dom (My Own House) initiative.
The Agency includes businesses operating in a variety of industry sectors, such as developers and construction companies, manufacturers of materials and equipment for low-rise construction and financial organisations.
The Agency’s mission is to reverse the housing policy trends in favour of low-rise construction; refocus low-rise construction companies on using industrial, cost effective and energy-saving technologies; boost demand for low-rise housing; build a framework for public-private partnership in the low-rise construction sector; devise and implement techniques for effective funding of low-rise construction projects, including land mortgages; and develop a crisis bailout plan providing development incentives to the construction industry.
In the three years that NAMIKS has been on the market, low-rise homes have become the key to providing economical housing for Russian citizens. Among other initiatives, low-rise homes are used for resettling occupants of condemned buildings and granting housing to military servicemen and other special categories of Russian national. For this purpose, NAMIKS has initiated corresponding changes to the regulatory framework.
NAMIKS is taking part in developing the Economy Class Housing Standard that is essential for national programmes for providing homes to socially vulnerable persons and pilot projects of the Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending (AHML), the Russian Housing Development Foundation and the Housing and Public Utilities Reform Assistance Foundation.
In cooperation with the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation, NAMIKS experts are drafting the low-rise housing section of the Long-Term Strategy for Mass Construction of Housing for All.
NAMIKS is the key venue for consultations and the centre for acquisition and consolidation of information used in proposals for amending existing laws. The Agency is an active partner of the Government of the Russian Federation and all national institutes for development of the housing sector in Russia, including the Housing and Public Utilities Reform Assistance Foundation, the Russian Housing Development Foundation and the Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending.
In February 2011, Vnesheconombank and NAMIKS signed a memorandum of cooperation. The new partners will consolidate their efforts in implementing the Municipal Development Support Programme (Municipal Engineering and Social Infrastructure in Preparation of Sites for Integrated Housing and Industrial Development Projects). The parties’ mission is to complete the programme in all the regions of Russia. Some 15-25 pilot projects will be selected for developing the public-private partnership (PPP) approach, the main focus to be on arrangement and development of the infrastructure in selected territories, which is congruent with the VEB programme.
NAMIKS has already opened regional offices in over 30 parts of the Russian Federation. These offices were established to engage and unite the efforts of low-rise construction companies in their relevant areas, ensure liaison with all branches of regional governments and represent NAMIKS in the regions. As a result, NAMIKS has agreements on cooperation in place with many executive authorities of constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
NAMIKS website: www.namiks.ru
About the Skolkovo Foundation
The Foundation for Development of the Skolkovo Centre for Research and Commercialising New Technologies is a nonprofit organisation created on the initiative of President Dmitry Medvedev in September 2010. Its goal is to mobilise Russia’s resources for modern applied research and create an environment beneficial for academic pursuits in five priority fields of technological development, including energy and energy efficiency, space, biomedicine, nuclear technologies and IT. This project calls for establishing the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (SIST), a number of research institutions, a business incubator, a technology transfer and commercialisation centre, representative offices of foreign companies and R&D centres, as well as housing and a social infrastructure. In the future, the project’s know-how will be rolled out to other innovative regions of Russia. A special law governs Skolkovo, granting its residents special economic benefits.
Skolkovo Foundation website: www.i-gorod.com